Mexico

Mexico's historical attractions - from the
ancient ruins of the Olmecs, Maya, and Aztec, to the train routes used
by the brash and legendary Pancho Villa - rank second only to the
beaches of Cancun - and Alcapulco as the prime reason people come. The
reason for this is simple: the tale of Mexico's past, accompanied by an
overwhelming amount of physical remains, is as romantic, blood-curling,
dramatic, and complex as it gets.

Somewhere around 1000 BC, the first of Mexico's
ancient civilizations, the Olmecs, established themselves in what are
now the states of Veracruz and Tabasco. They worshipped a jaguar God,
built cities, constructed massive stone head carvings, and spread
throughout central and southern Mexico until their civilization
mysteriously vanished around 400 BC. Though the Olmecs left behind
relatively few artifacts, their influence on later cultures was
profound. In their wake came the Teotihuacan, the Zapotecs and Mixtecs
of Monte Alban, the Maya of Yucatan, the Toltecs, Aztecs, and dozens of
smaller, citied groups. To balance the spiritual and earthly realms and
appease their pantheons of gods, many of these civilizations practiced
human sacrifice, a fact that often overshadows their great achievements
in the realms of mathematics, astronomy, architecture, textile weaving,
art, and pottery. The Maya, for example, were so advanced in mathematics
and astronomy that their calendar was the world's most accurate until
this century. They could also predict solar and lunar eclipses.

None of Mexico's pre-Columbian civilizations is
more storied, however, than the Aztecs. Though it is arguable that other
civilizations in Mexico achieved greater artistic and scientific feats,
none advanced as quickly or ruled as much territory. Prior to the 15th
century, the Aztecs were a marginal tribe living on the edge of Lake
Texcoco, the site of present day Mexico City. By 1473, after
subjugating neighboring tribes, they ruled the largest empire Mexico had
ever seen. Their capital of Tenochtitlan, set in the lake, was a
picturesque city of pyramids, mile-long floating roads, aquaducts,
animated marketplaces, and one hundred thousand residents. Leading a
highly codified government was an all-powerful emperor who exacted taxes
from the conquered and distributed land to his people, especially the
warriors. When the Spanish adventurer Hernan Cortez arrived in 1519, the
rich city was a vision perfectly meshed to his thirst for conquest.

The Conquest of New Spain, a great and tragic
history, begins in April of 1519 when a Cortes lands in Veracruz, about
200 miles from the Aztec capital. Cortes had a singular mission:
defeat the Aztecs and take their gold. To do so, he had less than 400
soldiers, 16 horses, 14 pieces of artillery, 11 ships, plenty of guns
and ammunition, and cajones. His first act upon landing was to burn all
but one of his ships - he wanted no turning back. That he was able to
defeat an empire with just a few hundred men seems nothing short of
miraculous, but some of el conquistador's success, however, can be
attributed to plain and simple luck.

According to an Aztec myth, the white-faced
Quetzacuatl - their most important god - had long ago fled to the east,
but would one day return. When the Aztec ruler, Moctezuma II, beheld
Cortes and his light-skinned men upon their arrival in Tenochtitlan, he
believed them to be emissaries of the great Quetzacuatl himself. The
opportunistic Cortes, coached by Malinche - a Spanish-speaking Indian
who had become his lover back at the coast - did not attempt to correct
him. Cortes returned the emperor's hospitality by taking him hostage. A
compliant Moctezuma ordered his people to stand down, and by the time
the Aztecs began to resist Cortes had already brought in reinforcements
from the coast. The Aztecs disowned their cooperative, captive emperor,
who died a prisoner in his own palace. When the Aztecs finally laid
siege to the palace, Cortes and his men snuck away in the middle of the
night and ran for the coast. On the way, over half his force was killed
by the pursuing army, but the survivors returned with thousands of
Indian allies to conquer the city a year later.

Mexico, with its fertile plains and great mineral
wealth, was the crown jewel of Spain's colonies. It was heavily taxed,
ruled directly from Spain, and permitted no autonomy. The Spanish
monarchs distributed land to settlers in the form of encomiendas (the
predecessor to the hacienda), which were worked by Indian slaves that
the settler's were charged to protect and convert to Christianity. A
caste system developed: there were Espanoles (Spaniards born in Spain),
criollos (Mexican-born, but with Spanish blood), mestizos (Spanish and
Indian), and finally the indigenes, the Indians. Because of their forced
dependence on the hacienda owners, and no resistance to European
ailments, the Indians were riddled with debt and disease long after
Spain abolished slavery in 1548.

If the seeds of Mexican independence had not
already been planted in the soil, then they were planted when Napoleon
conquered Spain in 1808 When the French conqueror placed his brother on
the Spanish throne, Mexico's elite began to talk of self-rule. The man
who turned talk into action was a Catholic priest named Father Miguel de
Hidalgo y Costilla, who led an armed rebellion in 1810. Though he was
eventually captured and executed, Hidalgo's leadership began a war of
independence that culminated on September 27, 1821, when the rebel
leader Vicente Guerrero and the royalist Agustin de Iturbide signed the
Treaty of Cordoba. Unfortunately, with independence Mexico's troubles
were just beginning.

For almost a century, the new country would be
wracked by marked by almost incessant fighting. One of the first Mexican
presidents, the former rebel general Santa Ana, is sourly credited with
losing half his country to the United States after a two-year war that
ended in 1848. Santa Ana was eventually exiled and succeeded by Ignacio
Comonfort, who abdicated the presidency in favor of one of Mexico's
best-loved leaders, a mestizo from the state of Oaxaca ("Wah-ha-ka")
named Benito Juarez.. Juarez liberalized the constitution and
instituted land-reform, infuriating the wealthy conservative class and
setting off a bloody conflict known as the War of Reform, which lasted
from 1858 to 1861. Juarez's forces were victorious, but by the time the
war was over Mexico's coffers were dry and it was defaulting on its
foreign debt payments. France, a major lender, and saw this as a perfect
excuse to invade. Napoleon III sent in the archduke of Austria,
Maximilian, who quickly took most of the country. After a dogged
resistance, Juarez finally retook Mexico City in 1867 and Maximilian
was executed. To the archduke's credit, much of his defeat was caused
by his own conscience and love for Mexico: during his rule, he
passionately instituted a series of progressive reforms that enraged the
conservatives and caused Napoleon to abandon him.

In 1871, a mestizo named Porfirio Diaz ran
against Juarez for president and was defeated. A sore loser, he decided
to overthrow the government and succeeded five years later. His
iron-fisted rule, which lasted almost 40 years, became known as the
Porfiriato. During his reign, Diaz sold off much of Mexico's industries
to foreigners and routinely suppressed his opponents with brutal force.
He was ultimately challenged by hacienda owner Francisco I. Madero in
his famous book The Presidential Succession of 1910. Diaz ordered
Madero arrested, but the latter fled to the US and returned to win the
presidency in 1910, backed by the legendary Emiliano Zapata, who was
leading a revolt against Diaz in the South. But Madero's presidency was
short lived; Madero's own military commander, Victoriano Huerta,
assassinated him with the help of the US embassador, and in the
tremendously bloody war that ensued, Huerta's forces were pitted against
a formidable alliance led by men whose names are now legend: Venustiano
Carranza, General Alvaro Obregon, Emiliano Zapata, and the infamous
Pancho Villa in the north. The Mexican Revolution, among the bloodiest
internal conflicts in world history, was on.

Once Huerta was defeated, Carranza assumed the
presidency, but this was only the beginning. Villa and Zapata, refusing
to recognize him, drove he and Obregon from the capital. While the
armies of the north and south held wild fiestas in the capital, Carranza
and Obregon retreated to Veracruz, where they quickly reassembled and
then retook the capital when Villa and Zapata failed to organize a
government. Obregon later annihilated Villa's cavalry in Celaya, and
Villa would never again be so powerful. Carranza held power until the
next elections, when it became clear that the popular Obregon would
defeat him. Falling into the now well-worn trap of wanting to hold power
for too long, Carranza tried to stage a coup, but Obregon escaped and
his forces returned to chase and kill Carranza as he fled along the old
escape route to Veracruz. Meanwhile, in a last-ditch attempt to pull
the United States into a conflict against Carranza, Villa invaded
several US border towns and killed some inhabitants. After an
unsuccessful pursuit by US forces, Villa finally hung up his pistoles
and became a farmer in Parral. He was assassinated in 1923 when his car
was ambushed. His brother in the south, Zapata, was also killed in 1919
after he was lured into a trap by a government soldier. When it was all
over, the only man left alive, Obregon, was president.

Mexico's post-revolution history is marked by the
tenacity of a single political party, the Partido Revolucionario
Institutional, or PRI. The party was founded by Plutarco Elias Calles,
who took over as president when Obregon was assassinated (quite possibly
by a Calles plot) in 1928. But the party's most loved president was
General Lazaro Cardenas in 1934. Cardenas instituted widespread land
reform, strengthened unions, and nationalized the petroleum industry.
PRI candidates, who are hand-picked by the president, have held power
since - but not always peacefully. Election fraud has been endemic
(although recent elections indicate this is changing). In 1968, the
government violently suppressed a student protest in Mexico city,
killing hundreds. The last 30 years have seen a heavily fluctuating
economy, an influx of refugees from Central America, and inveterate
government corruption (much of it linked to the illicit drug-trade).
Though the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has provided
economic hope to some, it has also helped spur Indian guerillas in
Chiapas to rebel against what they see as an uncaring government. Many
Mexicans put their hope in 1994 PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, only
to have them dashed when he was assassinated the same year in Tijuana.
The current political atmosphere in Mexico is, however, optimistic.
Indications are that the PRI is willing share power with the opposition.
In 1997, for the first time in history, Mexico City elected a mayor who
was not a PRI candidate. Traditionally, the mayoral seat of Mexico City
is the second most powerful office in the nation, and the citizens of
the Districto Federal could not have elected a more ironic man: he is
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the son of the PRI's beloved Lazaro Cardenas. He
ran against his father's party, and won.